Christie signs bill opening adoption records

Governor Christie speaking during the adoption bill signing joined by, from left, Judy Foster, board member of the American Adoption Congress, Peter Franklin of Haskell and Pam Hasegawa of Morristown.

Adopted people searching for their personal stories or family medical histories will soon be able to obtain their birth certificates without getting a court order, under a bill signed into law by Governor Christie on Tuesday.

Advocates for adoptees, who fought for decades to loosen the state’s restriction on access to their birth certificates, said the measure is long overdue. Christie and other lawmakers said it strikes a “balancing act” between protecting the privacy of birth parents and giving adoptees access to important information.

Christie, whose sister was adopted, said the problems that come with not knowing family histories were “made even more complicated for her because the father of her four children was also adopted.”

“The lack of knowledge and information that they can pass on to their own children has been a cause of great concern and stress for them over the years,” the governor said.

The law will allow adoptees, their adoptive parents or the children of adoptees to obtain their birth certificates through the state registrar beginning in 2017, eliminating the current requirement that they go through the cumbersome process of getting a court order. The birth parent may submit a “contact preference” with the state that explains whether the parent is willing to have direct contact with the child, contact through an intermediary or no contact at all. Along with their contact preferences, parents must submit information on their family medical histories.

It took supporters of the bill decades to make it law.

“I think I’m still in shock because it happened so quickly after 34 years of labor,” said Morristown resident Pam Hasegawa of the New Jersey Coalition for Adoption Reform and Education. “We entered the delivery room just a few weeks ago, and here we are. It feels like a miracle to us.”

Much of that delay came from organizations concerned that the measure could increase the rates of abortions. Other groups were worried about the privacy rights of mothers who gave their children up for adoption with the promise of anonymity. In a 1994 article in The Record, The New Jersey Catholic Conference contends that society’s pact with the natural parents must be preserved. “Having been assured of confidentiality by statute and having lived their lives in reliance on that … birth parents should not now be compelled against their will to reveal their past,” the group said.

“We went against the most powerful organizations,” Peter Franklin, a Haskell resident and the founder of Adoptees Without Liberty, said after the bill signing on Tuesday. “We couldn’t find a friend.”

The new law includes a period to phase in the changes. The full effects of the law don’t kick in until 2017, giving the birth parents of people adopted before August 2015 time to submit their contact preferences.

Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Woodbridge, one of the sponsors, said the measure gives adoptees information that everyone else has: “the knowledge of not only our medical history, but who we are, what our ethnicities are, what our family stories are.”

In April, it was conditionally vetoed by Christie, who recommended extending the phase-in period to 2017. The state Senate and Assembly signed on to Christie’s changes in May by wide majorities.